PR ROCKS

You're very gracious, Dave. To some extent you are probably right.

Cadets 84.95 Phantom Regiment 84.05 Carolina Crown 83.30 Blue Knights 77.90 Bostn Crusaders 76.75 Crossmen 71.85

I don't know if Cadets will be the season champs, but I can tell you that they won't be a flop. Win or lose, narration or no narration, they've already made their mark on the 2007 season. Great corps.

It's interesting that when Dave mentioned something about PR going on early at a show he was accused of rationalizing and creating excuses for them to not do well. There have been countless threads since then mentioning other corps with early and unusual draws and what effect that might have but nobody has responded with any accusations or remarks.

Scores are posted for all but Cadets and Phantom.

As much as I liked the show, I never figured out why they chose the "City of Angels" theme (Los Angeles) for the ballad in a show that was a tribute to NYC. It was beautiful though.

Good point about Blue Knights....they are strong again. The only reason I didn't mention them was I was using spreads over the last two nights and Cadets and Carolina Crown did not compete against Blue Knights on Monday, but they did compete against Boston Crusaders. Phantom competed against both BK and BAC tonight.

Talking more about spreads, Monday the Cadets were 7.1 over Boston Crusaders and tonight Phantom was 7.0 over Boston Crusaders. Even though their scores on the two nights were not close, the spreads make them sound close...of course Boston could have had a rough show tonight. You just can't tell anything unless they go head to head. Saturday in Allentown is going to be hot! For that matter, the rematch of Bluecoats, Blue Devils and Cavaliers in Allentown on Sunday will be hot too!

The Phantom Regiment/Carolina Crown comparisons are interesting, Carolina Crown's score is higher tonight (and was last night) than Phantom's score, but if you look at spreads, Phantom is 7.0 ahead of Boston Crusaders in head to head competition tonight and Carolina Crown was 5.5 ahead of Boston Crusaders head to head last night. This is a very interesting season.

DCI East in Allentown is the weekend before. It's my understanding that those results will determine the corps for the Masters in Murfreesboro.

1) Maybe, but not much yet. 2) Not much if any 3) Not at this show 4) No I say: Cadets 81.95 Phantom Regiment 81.10 Carolina Crown 79.60 Blue Kinghts 76.05 Boston Crusaders 75.30 Crossmen 71.10

It would be great to meet you Matt if I was going to be there...but I will unfortunately have to watch via the webcast in my bonus room. Enjoy.

Well it should already be over. PR was to take the field at 8:52 Eastern. They should have finished about 5 minutes ago.

The forecast I just saw has been udated from "thunderstorms" to "scattered thunderstorms." Slight improvement?

I was at Finals last year and there nothing wrong with the vocalists actual performance, but there were issues with mics/amplification during her part in the ballad. My opinion was not that it was "nasty." Of course you can debate the "performance" of the equipment and you may personally not like the vocalists performance, but I thought "her" performance was fine. Maybe I missed the point?

I would say that what was different was: 1) Rough opening night show - the only change I know of was dropping the beginning "pre" narration. They caught Bluecoats at the very next show. 2) Shows with "meat" to the music and drill can grow quick with cleaning. They have that. 3) This was their first competition with Phantom Regiment, and while they won and it wasn't as close as expected, it was closer to one point than two. The scoring differece was 1.25.

Not meant as a correction, just an observation. I love PR (my favorite), but I love the Cadets organization. I am encoraged for PR that they are that competitive in GE. If they can bring performance up they could contend. PR fans have to know, though, that that Cadets, and the other 4-5 top corps aren't going to just lay down and let them pass. It's going to be tough.

I would hardly call two tenths of a point edge in GE domination. But at any rate, there are no excuses....the judges call it like they see it. Either Cadets are performing that much better or PR was inconsistent last night.

Well, for Phantom it has to be somewhat encouraging to be so close in GE. I expected them to be close in performance across the board and Cadets to be ahead in GE. Could be Phantom had an off night (especially in brass) and could be that Cadets are just performing better. Like Nikk said, we won't be able to tell until they compete a few more times.

I've been thinking that myself.

Don't forget that Bluecoats beat Cadets once in the first show by .9, but Cadets came back to beat them in every other show I believe.

The Omaha APDs are now available.

Thanks for the visual, Nikk.

As long as corps continue to put out such intricate shows with so many design elements I really have no problem with shows not being finished at the very beginning of the season. As far as uniforms, with such a large amount of the guard members being involved with winter guard and other programs, I understand that part too, although it seems like flags could be ready at the beginning of the season. I do think shows should be at least 10 minutes long when the season starts...but I would rather see an intricate, demanding show by year end that is not quite complete in mid June that easier, less intricate show designs that are complete at the beginning of the year. If a corps can provide the full show design when they start out then more power to them.

The season is only a week old, but who would have thought that this matchup would have been this interesting?